Information to collect for a working bibliography

Information to collect for a working bibliography

For an entire book

  • All authors; any editors or translators
  • Title and subtitle
  • Edition (if not the first)
  • Publication information: city, publisher, and date
  • Medium: print, Web, and so on
  • Date you retrieved the source (for an online source)

For an article

  • All authors of the article
  • Title and subtitle of the article
  • Title of the journal, magazine, or newspaper
  • Date; volume, issue, and page numbers
  • Medium: print, Web, DVD, and so on
  • Date you retrieved the source (for an online source)

For an article retrieved from a database (in addition to the preceding information for an article)

  • Name of the database (such as Academic Search Premier, PsycINFO)
  • Accession number or other number assigned by the database
  • Digital object identifier (DOI), if there is one
  • URL of the database home page or of the journal's home page if there is no DOI
  • Date you retrieved the source
R-supp-12

USING SOURCES RESPONSIBLY: Use care when printing or saving articles in PDF files. The files themselves may not include some of the elements you need to cite the source properly, especially page numbers. You may need to record additional information from the database or Web site where you retrieved the PDF file.

For a Web source (including visual, audio, and multimedia sources)

  • All authors, editors, or composers of the source
  • Editor or compiler of the Web source, if there is one
  • Title and subtitle of the source
  • Title of the longer work, if the source is contained in a longer work
  • Title of the Web site
  • Print publication information for the source, if available
  • Online page or paragraph numbers, if the source provides them
  • Date of online publication (or latest update)
  • Sponsor or publisher of the site (often in a copyright notice or an “About” page)
  • Date you accessed the source
  • URL or permalink of the page on which the source appears

Note: For the exact bibliographic format to use in your working bibliography and in the final paper, see MLA, APA, or Chicago.